I was in a very similar situation when we bought our house. We were lucky that prices had softened when we bought. Rather than buy the most house we could afford, we bought an adequate house in the best school district and had provisioned a 2 year cash emergency fund set aside in case of job loss o...

I just called found out that Fidelity doesn't offer VWIUX (Vanguard Intermediate-Term Tax-Exempt Fund - Admiral class). They offer VWITX - the investor class version of the fund (with a $75 transaction fee), but no admiral class. Of course, the rep tried to convince me to use the equivalent Fidelit...

If you buy a fund in a taxable account for 10k and it pays out a $300 dividend, that dividend is taxable income (although the rate may be zero). You may take that dividend in cash, in which case you still have your original cost basis of 10k. However, if you reinvest the dividend, your cost basis i...

Keep the bonds. For 1992-2007 the rates should be very good compared to current fixed income alternatives. This is a blanket statement, and not accurate (to the best of my knowledge). OP - you really need to check on each bond. Some of them may be earning relatively nice interest. Others could be a...

We can't answer this question without knowing when each bond was purchased.

Go over to treasurydirect.gov and do some reading on EE bonds. They also have some tools that will tell you when the bonds will reach face value (for those that haven't), what interest rate they're earning, etc.

happen to see your thread - I've been wondering the same thing - and our son is 24 - BTW - wonder how you are keeping track of the bonds ? Did you turn them in, and keep track online ? or - I'm using the Savings Bond Wizard - very primitive software program. http://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/tool...

Hi folks. My son is 15, and I recently remembered that he received several EE bonds when he was an infant. They were all issued in the 99-01 time frame. I'm wondering if they should be cashed and the proceeds placed in his 529 account. Questions/thoughts: they are currently earning about 1.5% I'm fa...

My take on this is that the 4% fails when returns are low or negative early in retirement. The answer then should be to save for a 4% comfortable early retirement. If right after you retire there is a down market, go back to work part time if possible to avoid drawing down the portfolio for a year ...

The rising costs for attending college are unsustainable. Something has got to give. +1 Over the next 20 years I see major changes occurring, most likely in the form of online/distance learning. The traditional experience of a dorm room/apartment near campus and attending classes in vine covered bu...

The rising costs for attending college are unsustainable. Something has got to give. +1 Over the next 20 years I see major changes occurring, most likely in the form of online/distance learning. The traditional experience of a dorm room/apartment near campus and attending classes in vine covered bu...

I haven't read the entire thread, but I suggest you first determine what aspect of computer technology you are interested in. Here's a rough outline, each one building on the previous: hardware (internal guts of the machine: storage (hard drives, solid state storage), CPUs, display devices, peripher...

I think Vanguard has better products, and Fidelity has better service. Holding Vanguard ETFs in a Fidelity account you get the best of both. bingo. i swapped all my vanguard accounts to fidelity and couldn't be happier. fido has the better website, apps, tools, etc it's not even in the same ballpar...

Here's what I've done the past couple of years. It might not be the most efficient, but it is possibly the easiest. I wait until mid-March of the following year to make the previous year's Roth contribution. That way, you know exactly what your tax situation is. You lose a relatively small amount o...

Newb, Newb, Newb... Newb... some of the threads you start (bored when market is closed).... and, now this... :oops: I'm starting to think he's trolling; way too many threads started like this that are obviously anti-Boglehead. Care to explain how the thread is anti-Boglehead? One of the Bogle corne...

Thanks for the feedback. I looked into the option of a backdoor Roth, but given that I have somewhat large balances in existing IRAs, the benefit would be negligible. So, unless I'm missing something, my only real option here is to max out my 401K. Are there any other ways to expand my tax-advantage...

Hi folks. For the purpose of this post, let X = 1 year of annual expenses. Current investments: taxable accounts: 19X tax deferred: 18X I am a little more than 1 year from retirement (I will be 50). One of my goals before pulling the plug was to have 3X in short term taxable investments (safety net ...

A reminder that if you're concerned about privacy, it's best not to post here immediately after completing the survey, so others don't link it by your timestamps. Even just a little information about you can narrow it down pretty quickly. As an aside, while I know the present value of social securi...

You didn't ask, but, my preference is for the use of a brick and mortar bank for checking. Interest on low dollar checking accounts is low or nonexistent so that is not a consideration. Most banks now support online transactions and I like to support in my little way local businesses. Given this, I...

One of the great things about the M* portfolio tracker is that it keeps track of distributions for the funds you own. Hasn't happened yet, but that would be my method for realizing that a divs or cap gains have not been delivered.

SCV lagged the S&P 500, which is what I was comparing it against. Sorry that I wasn't clear. VFINX: 11.5% VBR: 8.6% VTSMX: 10.5% M* and Vanguard have the VBR total return as 10.55%. Perhaps you listed numbers without dividend re-invested? Yes, you are correct. However, the divs are also exclude...

As long as you are prepared to stay until they find someone (especially because the skills - not including your own knowledge, obviously - aren't rare), and can also stay to train them, what's the rush? Seems like an ideal situation for everyone, no? RM Good point - given that I'd be willing to sti...

First I would think you might want to diversify more so a market hit before April, 2016 wouldn't derail your retirement plans. Our portfolio is well-diversified. I'm a boglehead. Current portfolio is 35x annual expenses. Every calculator says I'm good to go, but if that were to fall to 25x or lower...

Any idea how long it might take them to find a replacement? Probably 2 months at a minimum How rare are your skills? My skills aren't all that rare - it's more an issue of familiarity with the existing code base. And how long might it take you to train someone, sharing some of your own memory, etc....

Hi folks. Looking for advice on my looming early retirement (current plan is 15 months from now). In particular, when and how to let my employer know of my plans. Here are some relevant details: ⋅ I'm a software developer in a small-ish company; 55 total employees and 12-15 developers &sdo...

Can someone tell me why my return was so low this year? Because SCV and ex-US did poorly compared to total US. Actually, SCV did quite well this year especially compared to small-cap blend and small-cap growth. One can even say that TSM was dragged down by small-cap growth a little bit. Large-cap U...

Just thought I'd pass this along to prevent anybody else from having the same issue... I have a taxable account at Fidelity. In 2013, I set all positions to not reinvest dividends/cap gains. Two or three months ago, I TLH'd one of those positions and bought a similar fund. Since the similar fund was...